


16th & Armstrong

by inthemorning



Category: Danisnotonfire - Fandom, Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Reader-Insert, kinda OOC, well kind of high school it's the summer before so like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:56:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5447327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthemorning/pseuds/inthemorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's always been them, together, but separation is just a part of growing up. // High School!AU and it's set in the United States oops</p>
            </blockquote>





	16th & Armstrong

**AUGUST**

  
        The bell above the door jingles as someone steps into the diner. Cool almost-autumn wind blows into the the humid, barely ventilated building. [Y/N] looks at her watch. Right on time. She glances up for a moment, only to see him trip over the leg of a chair and quickly regain balance. She feels her eyes roll to the back of her head and looks back down at the lined paper.  _Idiot._  This happens at least twice a week.  
        "'Sup, loser." Dan slides into the plastic-covered booth across from [Y/N], beaming.  
        "Hm," she acknowledges his presence, but continues constructing the thesis for her application essay.  
        "Did'ja see the way I totally just saved myself from a broken nose?" He pulls a small, purple bead from his pocket and keeps it in his palm as he puts his hand on the checkered tabletop. She doesn't notice.  
        "I kinda wish you'd fallen. Teach you a lesson about picking up your feet when you walk." She looks up at him and smiles; it's all in good fun.  
        "Hmph. You're not really one to be talking. How's your knee doing from yesterday's tumble?"  
        "Oh, hush." She's embarrassed now. "I'm trying to get work done, Dan."  
        He nods, understanding, but can't keep quiet for more than two minutes. "So..." he pulls the paper from her side of the table to his to review. "Have you got anything to say? To me. Not to this thesis. Which is–" he takes a moment to skim the page, "–pretty alright by my standards. Who's this going to?"  
        "No one, if you keep distracting me."  
        "Aw, don't be like that. You didn't even say thank you for the compliment. Here, let me get you a coffee." He waves a waitress to the table.   
        "Daniel, it's rude to call attention to wait staff that way. And you know I don't like coffee."  
        He mocks offense. "Whoa, breaking out the full name now, aren't we? They know us here, [Y/N]. No biggie."  
        It only takes a few seconds to hear the sound of worn out soles and the flip of a pad of paper walking in their direction; this place is practically a ghost town. The only other sound was a barely-audible oldies radio station being played in the kitchen. The same person who has been taking their order since midway through sophomore year asks, "What'll it be?"  
        "A black coffee and some hot cocoa, please." When the waitress is gone, Dan leans across the table and whispers, "You'd think after a year and a half, she'd remember our usual order." [Y/N] kicks him under the table. "Ow! Just for that, I'll take the cocoa and you can have the coffee."  
        "Give me back the paper, loser."  
        "Hey, now... there's no need for those fighting words," he teases. Dan slides it back and she picks up her pencil from the sticky tabletop.

•••

  
        Dan stirs his cold coffee with a spoon, the metal clinking against the ceramic. His other hand rolled the bead back and forth across the table. He's complied with [Y/N]'s request to stay quiet for the most part, but doesn't really understand why she's got to do this now. When they met up at the old diner on the corner at 16th and Armstrong a few times a week, it was Best-Buddy-Time. Not Dan-Watches-As-[Y/N]-Does-College-Stuff-Time. Especially not today, of all days.   
        "Don't you think you deserve a break?" he puts the spoon down on a crumpled napkin. "The sun's 'bouta go down. Let's go out into the parking lot to watch it."  
        She sighs and puts her pencil down. "Fine."  _Like the sun doesn't make its way across the sky on a literal day-to-day basis, or anything._    
        He picks the wooden bead up from the table and puts it back into a zipped up pocket in his pants. Then, he pulls the hood of his jacket up around his ears. "After you."  
        They clamber up onto the hood of Dan's 2004 Camry and pull their legs beneath them. The air they exhale comes out as little puffs and she wants to make a generic comment about the weather, but feels pensiveness hanging thick in the thin air. Dan hasn't looked in her direction in almost four minutes, not that she's counting.  
        [Y/N] finds herself wondering about his future instead of hers. They've managed to tip-toe around the subject of college for a few months now, but with her thesis out in the open today, she feels that now's a better time than ever.  
        "You know where you're going, don't you? Where and how the next five years of your life are going to be spent."  
        "Hm? Repeat," he looks down at her from the streaks of pink and orange in the sky. It looked almost exactly like it did on a spring evening in seventh grade, right outside the gymnasium.  
        "The rest of high school. College. Your entire future. You know exactly what you're doing?" It comes out more like a statement than a question. Of course he knows what he's doing.  
        He shrugs.  _Quit being humble, Dan._  She suppresses the urge to roll her eyes.  
        "You're going to the city?" she continues.  
        He hesitates before responding, "Not the one you're referring to."  
        "You're going out of state?" [Y/N] feels her cheeks go red and she knows it's not from the biting wind. She looks away from him and up at the clouds, with her bottom lip between her teeth and a prickly feeling in her eyes. She blinks a few times to get it under control.  
        Dan clears his throat. "I, uh... I sent in an application to SAIC a few days ago. I probably won't get in, though, so y'know..." he trails off and looks back up at the magentas and marigolds being soaked up by giant, cotton ball clouds, where the colors seem to be getting as vibrant as the neon signs outside of the diner instead of dull, like the lights inside.  
        _He'll get accepted. He will without a doubt. Why would he pay to send an application if he thought he couldn't make it anyway? I'm not an idiot, Dan_ , turned into  _Oh, God, he's leaving me_ , quicker than [Y/N] would let herself admit.  
        "Chicago?"  
        He pulls his knees up to his chest. "Yeah."  
        [Y/N] feels an urge to step down from the car and go back inside. She'd say the wind is giving her a chill, so she needs to get back into the heated restaurant. It's not a complete lie. Though, the wind isn't what's making her blood go cold. She goes against it and stays next to Dan.  _So when did he plan on telling me? Right before boarding an airplane at JFK next fall?_  [Y/N] clasps her hands in her lap and bites the inside of her cheek. Dan leans back onto the windshield and breathes in deeply. The bead in his pocket feels like it's a million times heavier and burning into the skin on his thigh.  
        "You're writing out your essay for NYU, right? I should start, shouldn't I?"  
        "Hm," [Y/N] chips the nail polish off her index finger. "Guess so."  _Not that there's really any point in doing so._  
        "You're mad."  
        "No," she responds, which isn't untrue. She feels a little disillusioned, but not angry. That's her own fault, not his. When someone's always been there and there's gonna be a point when they're not gonna be anymore, it's bound to feel like a punch in the gut.  
        "It's been, like, ten years, [Y/N]. You're still gonna be my favorite when I'm away."  _That's not what I'm worried about. Good to know that you're as confident in your ability to get accepted as I am, though._  "Hey, okay, remember when we met? You were the only one who could get past me in Red Rover. I was so annoyed; I complained to my mom about how you were officially my mortal enemy and swore to never participate in first-day-of-school ice breaker games ever again."  
        "Well, one of those things is still true. Friends close and enemies closer, right?" [Y/N] interjects.  
        "Well, yeah, obviously." He sits up and puts his fists in front of his face in a boxing stance, trying to look menacing. "Try to catch these hands, [Y/N]. I dare you."  
        She laughs loud enough for the couple a few spots away to give her a look before getting in their car. "Shut up, Dan."  
        The streetlights flicker on as the sun sneaks past the horizon. [Y/N] and Dan don't notice. The only thing breaking silence is the hum of neon lights behind them and the occasional coo of a pigeon. The bead feels lighter now and he pats the outside of his pocket to make sure it's still there.  
        "D'you ever think about stuff?"  
        "No, Dan. I've literally never thought about anything in my life. Ever. Except when I have those brief moments of existential dread due to the future arriving rapidly and time passing irregularly."  
        "Not that, jeez. You know what I mean."  
        "Nice inference, but still nope. Maybe it's the vagueness. Try again."  
        "Back when we were, like, twelve and I was super nervous about that charity art exhibition held at school? Do you remember that?"  
        "I remember your necktie being too long."  
        "[Y/N]," he groans. "Seriously. I never thanked you. Almost five years and I haven't even mentioned it." The bead starts to feel heavy again.  
        "You looked like you needed some cheering up. I was only doing my job as the best friend, soon-to-be manager, and eventual muse, right? And stating that you haven't thanked me doesn't count as a thank you."  
        He gives her a look.  
        "Okay so maybe it does count. Kind of."  
        The old multicolored bracelet was long gone now, its beads and elastic buried somewhere in the soccer field of their middle school. It was [Y/N]'s favorite and she only claimed it was lucky once, on a March evening. She'll never tell Dan that it wasn't  _really_ , not even to her in some weird seventh grade naiveté, but he needed some sort of relief from the nervousness that tied his insides up in knots.  
        There he was, on the curb outside the gym, in a suit far too big, blaming his sniffling on what was left of winter's chill. She sat next to him and used her teeth to break the string.   
        "Here," she gestured the biggest (and therefore luckiest) bead from her bracelet in his direction and placed it in the breast pocket of his jacket. "It's kind of like a rabbit's foot. Or a horseshoe. Except, y'know, our own version."  
        She never found out what he did with it and assumed after it had served its purpose, Dan threw it out. A purple bead hidden under years and years worth of garbage in a landfill somewhere...  
        She's snapped out of it with two fingers being pressed to the back of her hand.  
        "Hey, [Y/N]? You never mentioned it."  
        "Mentioned what?"  _I'm pretty sure you're the one who hasn't thanked me yet._  
        "Have you looked up from your essay at all today? Maybe checked a calendar?" He's teasing now.  
        She pulls her lips into a partial smile and shrugs. "Not really."  
        "It's the 30th, [Y/N]. Officially ten years of you and me, bud." He's smiling as broadly as he did when he got the second highest SAT score in their class.  _How did I forget?_  
        "God. I can't believe... I can't believe I'm still friends with the King of Dweebs. Something as pointless as  _Red Rover_  has altered the course of my existence up until this point. Wow. This is what my life has come to."  
        He nudges her with his shoulder. "I kind of expected something sentimental, but I'll take it."  
  


•••

  
        "Y'know, don't write out an application for NYU. That tuition is gonna be a thorn in your side when you get to Chicago. Save up all the money you can."  
        Dan takes his eyes off the road for a second to glance at her.  
        "What?"  
        She looks out the window at the passing streetlights. Their shadows make a consistent, mesmerizing pattern across the dashboard every time the car passes one and it makes her eyelids droop. It's been almost two hours since sunset and she is just about ready to collapse into her bed and sleep away her responsibilities. She'll feel better about Dan probably-leaving-eventually by tomorrow.  
        [Y/N] yawns. "You're gonna make it into SAIC. There's no way you won't."  
        He doesn't deny his own intellectual and artistic abilities. Dan knows it's useless against her. She knows him better than he knows himself. Once, in eighth grade, she guessed his entire Top 25 Played iTunes playlist in order. It was kind of scary, honestly.  
        "I said what because you used the term 'thorn in your side.' Since when are you eighty?"  
        "Don't ruin the moment, Dan."  
        He chuckles at his poor excuse for a joke and looks at her again. "If I get in, I'll visit all the time. Promise."  
        "Yeah, you better. And when you become the next Andy Warhol, don't forget the little people."  
        "Warhol? Really? Let me tell you the difference between pop art, which is what Mr. Warhol did, and minimalism, which is what I do. They're hardly comparable and I'm shocked and offended at your attempt to put us in the same category." He's laughing now. "Do I look like the type of guy to paint soup cans? You'd think after ten years of being around me, some basic art knowledge might've rubbed off. Anyway, I can probably explain it by the time I pull into your driveway."  
        "Good grief."  
        "Look, I'm not a comedian; what do you expect from me? I'm practically a starving artist."  
        "If you don't count the donut you ate, like, ten minutes ago."  
        "What? Nope, can't hear you." He turns the knob on the radio to the right. "Music's too loud. Starving artist."  
        [Y/N] leans back in the pleather seat and sighs.  _I'm not sure if I'll miss this or not._  
        Dan slows down and makes a wide right turn into her driveway. She pushes the door open halfway.  
        "You're driving me tomorrow, right?"  
        "I was actually thinking of letting you walk. I heard starting off senior year doused in sweat is good luck in Finland. Probably. I have no sources for that."  
        [Y/N] steps out of the car. " See you tomorrow, then!"  
        When Dan sees the porch light turn off after she steps in the house, he pulls the purple bead from his pocket and into the cup holder in the center console. Then, he puts the gear in reverse and starts his his commute home, humming along to the oldies station.

**Author's Note:**

> Well. That was certainly a thing. I originally wrote this (with completely different, made up characters) for an assignment in my creative writing class. Since the semester is over, I no long had any use for it. So, naturally, I made some plot changes, edited it again, and changed the characters. Super interesting, I know. Oh, and Dan's college choice being where Kanye got his honorary doctorate was a complete coincidence. It was a part of the original story and just managed to work out like that lmao. Thanks for reading!


End file.
